


come under the covers

by ghosthunter



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-24
Updated: 2017-08-24
Packaged: 2018-12-19 13:31:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11898771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghosthunter/pseuds/ghosthunter
Summary: Andre meets him at the airport. He has a tan and he looks good. Not that Tom thinks he, himself, does not also have a tan and look good, but he's not picking himself up at the airport in a foreign country either.





	come under the covers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [taxingme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/taxingme/gifts).



> written for taxingme in the all caps exchange, who wanted "something where Tom goes to visit Andre over the summer and cue a fun summer romance type thing" and this is my attempt at that.
> 
> betaed by liv. thanks bro you're a real bro.

The season comes to an abrupt end, and Tom isn't sure how to handle it. They'd been doing so well. Tom had been doing so well. And now all he feels is crushing guilt and he doesn't want to leave his apartment.

Andre shows up around dinnertime with takeout, because apparently he's more willing to leave the building than Tom is. He lets himself in with his key and Tom is sitting in the dark with his remote, determinedly not watching any sports coverage. He's already burned the episodes of The Bachelorette that were on his DVR. Andre sighs and puts the bag of food down on the coffee table.

"You're being pathetic," Andre tells him, flopping down on the couch beside Tom. "Stop being pathetic."

"I feel pathetic," Tom says. Andre shifts and throws his legs over Tom's.

"I brought Chinese," Andre says. "Do you want to ride with me to the rink tomorrow?"

"How can you even think about the rink?" Tom says. He rests his hand on Andre's shins.

"Because we have to go there tomorrow?" Andre says, frowning. "Look, this is... it's fucking shitty what happened and I hate it too but you can't. Hibernate."

"Let me sulk," Tom says.

"No," Andre says, then swings his legs down and opens up the bag. "Lo mein. I'll go get forks. Do you want a beer? Do you have beer or do I need to go back to my place?"

"Andre," Tom says. There's a note of whine in it.

"Vodka?" he asks. "You want me to get the good vodka?"

"Please?" Tom finally says. Andre sighs and stands up.

"You get the forks, and I’ll get the vodka, then," he says, and heads for the door.

 

Two hours later, they're drunk and halfway through _Titanic_ , empty Chinese food containers scattered all over the coffee table in front of them. Andre's huddled under a blanket, because Tom keeps his apartment colder than Andre enjoys, one hand stuck out, still holding onto his glass. Tom's drunk, one arm around Andre, his drink in his other hand.

"You should come to Sweden," Andre says. Tom sloshes his drink over his hand twisting to look at Andre. Andre's not looking at Tom, though, so it's hard to see his face.

"What?" Tom finally says. On screen, Kate Winslet is giving Billy Zane's manservant the finger. Andre shifts and sits up, the blanket falling down his shoulders. His hair is a mess.

"You were so good in the playoffs, you know?" Andre says. "You should come to train with me and Nicke this summer."

"Do you think it would help?" Tom says.

"I think it would be better than sulking," Andre says.

"I'm not done yet," Tom says.

"Well, I'm done," Andre says. He sits all the way up, and finishes his drink. "Come stay with me. We'll train. It'll be different, you know, you'll learn different stuff. 

"Okay," Tom says.

"Really?" Andre asks.

"Really. Now sit down, I can't see the movie," Tom says.

"You can recite this movie," Andre points out.

"Shut up. Watch the movie."

 

Andre meets him at the airport. He has a tan and he looks good. Not that Tom thinks he, himself, does not also have a tan and look good, but he's not picking himself up at the airport in a foreign country either. He also needs to stop thinking about how good Andre happens to look right that moment, there in the car at the arrivals at the airport, muttering under his breath in Swedish as someone cuts them off.

"Do you want to grab food on the way to my place or do you want to shower first?" Andre says. Tom turns to him and grins.

"It was just a flight. Let's get food." Hopefully Andre won't decide that he needs to feed Tom weird pickled fish. Nicke and Jojo have done terrible things to Tom in the past involving strange Swedish foods. Usually while Andre laughed. They're all assholes, probably.

Andre still stays with his parents in the offseason normally, but they live too far south for him to commute up each day, so both of them are staying with Nicke for the next week. Nicke does not, as far as Tom knows, cook. Liza does, but Tom almost feels like that would be imposing, especially since feeding himself and Andre can be an undertaking. Both of them are more comfortable grabbing food before they get there, and Andre has ideas about where to go, besides.

Nicke only has one extra room, but his couch is at least comfortable. Tom stashes his suitcase in the guest room anyway, with Andre's stuff. He can drag all of his charging cables out to the couch later. He's trying to be careful, be quiet, because even though it's not that late, Nicke met them at the door to warn them both of his kids were asleep and they had to keep it down.

They have to be up early to head out for training, but Tom sprawls out on Andre's bed until way later than he should anyway. He tells Andre about going back to Toronto, and how weird it is since he's some kind of playoff star now. Andre tells him about going to parties celebrating the Swedes' IIHF win, and how funny it is to watch Nicke struggle with people fawning over him, and to watch him hide behind Willy Nylander.

Andre starts to doze off well before Tom does, because Tom's body still has no idea what time it is, and it's much later in Sweden than it was when he left Toronto. He needs to get up and go back to the couch, plug in his phone and try and force himself to sleep, but he doesn't want to. He wants to lay there, because it's nice to lay in bed with someone else breathing next to him.

Gross, he's gross, he needs to get up and go in the other room. The second he thinks how attractive Andre looks - pretty, for fuck's sake - with his eyes closed and lips parted, asleep next to Tom, Tom knows he has to go. He rolls off the bed and grabs his backpack, heading back to the living room and the couch.

 

Tom's exhausted the next morning, which isn't unexpected. He's dragging ass and Nicke is giving him his death glare but Tom just doesn't have the energy to move faster.

He falls asleep across the back seat of Nicke's car on the way back to Nicke's. Andre politely wakes him up by pinching his nostrils shut and making Tom snort himself awake, flailing both arms out. Nicke watches them with a look that, for Nicke, must be what passes for fondness.

"I don't think you should take a nap," Nicke tells him. "But going to bed early might not be that bad. Try and push it to like, ten."

Tom makes a noise of despair in the back of his throat. It's not quite four.

"Nine?" Nicke asks. He's cutting vegetables for dinner.

"That's still five hours from now," Tom says. He's whining. Nicke rolls his eyes.

"Shower's free," Andre says, strolling into the kitchen and straight to the fridge like he lives there.

"Andre, don't eat anything, I'm working on dinner," Nicke says. He points at Tom with his knife. "Go shower. If you're not back here in 20 minutes I'm going to assume you fell asleep and send Andre after you."

"Fine, fine," Tom says, heading off to shower.

He takes more than 20 minutes, but only just, because he fully spaces out in the shower once the hot water hits him. He's just gotten out when Andre comes banging on the door.

"Did you drown?" Andre yells.

"No!" Tom yells back.

Andre's still standing in the hall when Tom comes out, dressed in a pair of basketball shorts and nothing else, his hair wet and slicked back from his face. His t-shirt is dangling from his hand, but he's too warm from the shower to put it on yet.

"Nicke says Liza will be here in ten, and he'll actually start cooking dinner then," Andre tells Tom as they walk down the hall back to Andre's room, so Tom can put his stuff away. Or throw it on the floor in a pile next to his suitcase, anyway.

"I wanna take a nap so bad," Tom says. He even walks to the end of the bed.

"No, come back downstairs. Nicke'll give you a task then you won't want to sleep. Or you will, but you'll have to do whatever it is or Nicke will stab you with his big knife," Andre tells him. Tom groans.

"I didn't even know he could cook," Tom says.

"Me either," Andre says. "Come on."

 

Dinner hits the table around 6PM and by then, Tom is so out of it they may as well not even be talking to him. He's got his elbow on the table even though Liza has told him to move it at least twice, because Haley keeps copying it, his head leaned against his hand, letting the hum of everyone's chatter lull him to sleep.

He startles awake when his head falls off his hand, and suddenly all of the adults in the room are cackling. Tom blinks at them, betrayed. It's their fault - well, Nicke's fault - that he's even still here.

"Look, I'm not responsible for you waking up at four in the morning 'cause you went to bed too early tonight," Nicke says.

"You can switch rooms with me tonight, so you can go to sleep early, though," Andre says, like they've been discussing this. Maybe they have.

"Thanks," Tom says, mostly to Andre, but a little bit to Nicke for giving in as well. Sure, they're all adults, but they're conditioned to doing whatever Nicke tells them to do.

Tom heads upstairs then, kicking his slides off next to the bed and stripping his t-shirt off before flopping face down into the pillows. They smell like laundry detergent and Andre's cologne, and Tom sighs.

He wakes up some time in the night, when Andre comes in. “Hey, sorry, I just needed to grab my charger,” Andre says. Tom thinks blearily that it can’t be that late, because they have another early morning before training.

“Just plug it in here,” Tom says.

“No, I need the alarm,” Andre says.

“Plug in here,” Tom repeats, like it’s a thing that makes sense. “Stay in here.”

“Oh,” Andre says. That finally makes sense. Then there’s a pause, where Tom’s not sure if he’s even actually still awake. “You sure?” Andre finally whispers.

“Yes,” Tom says. He’s not really awake, and dozes until he feels Andre’s weight dip the mattress beside him. Andre’s still wearing his t-shirt, and it’s soft under Tom’s hand when he throws his arm across, curling close to Andre. Andre freezes for a moment, then relaxes into Tom, his back against Tom’s chest.

 

Tom wakes up in the morning stretched out on his stomach, one arm curved around Andre’s waist, and Andre’s body pressed flush against his side. Based on the way the light comes through the windows, it’s still early, too early for them to get out of bed. So it’s early in the morning, and Andre’s dick is pressed hard against his hip.

It’s just morning wood, Tom knows. Tom tells himself. That’s what happens, when you sleep in a bed with your bro and wake up spooning. Tom’s been there. He’s done that.

Only, he keeps watching Andre, like when they were in the car, and when Andre fell asleep the night before. He wants to kiss Andre, and he’s an idiot. He slips away from Andre and pushes himself out of the bed, heading down the hall to the bathroom. He’s definitely not going to jerk off - it’s someone else’s house, and that makes Tom feel a little uncomfortable.

He takes a piss and washes his face before heading back, slipping back beneath the blanket next to Andre, who shifts and sighs. Tom’s wide the fuck awake now, for sure, especially with Andre pressed back in against him. Andre has to be doing this on purpose.

“Andre,” he whispers, but Andre doesn’t seem to be awake. Tom closes his eyes and tries to will himself back to sleep. It’s not working.

What seems like hours later, but really could have been only half an hour, their alarms haven’t gone off, and Andre is fucking stretching out against him. Tom cracks an eye open to see Andre looking at him.

“Tom,” he whispers.

“Yeah,” Tom whispers back.

“I want,” Andre starts, then stops, licking his lips. “I want to kiss you.”

“Okay,” Tom says.

Andre’s mouth is soft against his, and he bumps his nose against Tom’s face as he pushes himself up so he can reach better. One of Tom’s arms is trapped beneath Andre’s body, but the other hand he tangles in Andre’s hair.

They stay that way until Tom’s arm is numb from Andre’s weight resting on it, and Tom finally pulls back. “You’re killing my arm,” he says. Andre laughs, burying his face in the crook of Tom’s neck to muffle the sound.

“You’re killing my _dick_ ,” Andre whispers back to him, and Tom lets go of Andre’s hair to stifle the laugh that escapes.

“You want me to,” Tom asks, and makes a jerking off gesture with his hand.

“God, please,” Andre says, and shifts so that his weight isn’t on Tom’s arm anymore. Tom twists them until they’re both on their sides, fitting their mouths back together while he reaches between them to wrap his hand around Andre’s cock.

 

It’s the start of something, that morning. They make plans to go out together for dinner, but it’s all anticipation, and they end up making out in the car in Nicke’s driveway like teenagers. They’re pretty sure that he knows, but that he’s ignoring them because otherwise he’ll have to kill them.

They jerk each other off in Andre’s room after everyone else has gone to bed, and stay together until Tom can barely keep his eyes open and he knows he has to go back and sleep on the couch. They’re keeping up a pretense, even if they do think Nicke and Liza know what they’re doing.

Tom figures that they’ll stop, once they head back south to where Andre’s spending the summer with his parents. Hooking up in the home of someone who is sort of a father figure to him is much, much different than hooking up in a home where Andre’s actual dad lives.

It’s just weird.

Not that it stops them.

Andre shows him around the city, taking him to places that Andre thinks are fun. They play golf, they work out. They make out in Andre’s bedroom and Tom doesn’t have to sleep on the air mattress on the floor after Andre jerks him off.

Tom kind of doesn’t want to leave, when the time finally comes to go back to America. Sweden’s nice, and so are Andre’s parents, but Tom’s definitely starting to feel like he’s overstaying his welcome.

Andre takes him back to the airport, and that’s it. They’ve never talked about it. Tom assumes they never will, and it was just … the place and the circumstance and if they leave it behind, they don’t have to talk about it. It’s not like Andre says anything or kisses him goodbye, just drops him at the curb and yells that he’ll see him in a few weeks.

Having feelings about Andre - having a crush on Andre - is probably the dumbest thing Tom has ever done.

 

Tom gets back to D.C. before Andre, even though Andre’s been there off and on over the summer. He throws away something terrible from his fridge that he left at the end of the season (huge, huge mistake - he’s pretty sure it cries for help even as he throws it in the garbage), then he buys new groceries. He does laundry. He goes to the gym.

Andre calls and asks Tom to pick him up from the airport and they pick up carryout on the way back to the apartment building. Tom flicks through Netflix while he waits for Andre to stash his bags in his apartment.

When Andre comes back, he’s changed into clean sweatpants and a t-shirt, and he helps himself to beer in Tom’s fridge - which Tom actually went out and purchased specifically with Andre in mind, because Tom is awful and still struggling with the whole giant teenage crush thing - and then flops onto the opposite end of Tom’s couch.

Andre dozes off with his head tilted against the back of the couch, after they’ve finished dinner and after they’ve run out of topics to chit chat about. The TV’s still on, and it’s not that late, but Andre’s just over from Sweden, so he’s geared to a much later time than Tom.

Tom reaches one leg over and nudges Andre with a sock-covered foot. “Hey,” he says, and Andre shifts, opening his eyes and licking his lips, realizing he’s fallen asleep. He stretches then, t-shirt riding up and exposing a strip of skin between it and the top of his sweatpants.

“Sorry,” Andre says, and yawns.

“You should get some sleep. Real sleep. Where you’re not gonna need to go and get an adjustment for your neck in the morning,” Tom says.

“You wanna hit the gym in the morning?” Andre asks him, sitting up. He pushes his feet into his slides, left on the floor in front of the couch.

“Sure. Ten? We can grab lunch after,” Tom says.

“Sounds good,” Andre says, standing up and shuffling toward the door. Tom follows, and locks it behind Andre once he’s gone.

 

They settle into a routine. Most days, they get up and head to the gym together, have lunch, then go their separate ways. Sometimes they meet back up for dinner, sometimes not. Sometimes they end up playing Fifa in Andre’s apartment until too late at night instead, and then one of them - usually Andre - will text in the morning saying they should head to the gym later.

Settling into training camp doesn’t change the routine much - there’s less late-night Fifa, there’s no gym in the morning because there’s camp instead. There are other teammates to have dinner with, group activities.

Andre never implies he’s interested in anything like what they did over the summer, and Tom is honestly disappointed. He’d never admit it, but he’s jerked off to the memory of it more than once. He doesn’t feel guilty, but almost.

 

It feels good to be back playing hockey. It keeps Tom from having any time at all to think about how he kind of wants to date Andre. In fact, the only time he thinks about that is when he’s jerking off, or when Andre is in the same hotel room as him, sprawled shirtless on his bed, playing on his phone.

The thing is, neither of them have mentioned the summer. Andre hasn’t made a move, and it’s like it hasn’t happened at all, except Tom can’t stop fucking thinking about it. It’s stupid. Tom has never dated another guy - never wanted to, actually. Sure, he’s fooled around with guys, but it’s not - it was never like that, never real feelings. Now, he’s concerned that maybe he does have feelings. For Andre.

Fucking Andre - his teammate, former roommate, his friend. It’s a huge mistake to let himself even entertain the thought, and it would be an even bigger mistake to act on it.

So he’s definitely walking around their hotel room in his underwear, his hair still damp from the shower, past Andre to his bag on the far side of the room. He could have taken his sweatpants into the bathroom. He didn’t. He knows exactly what he looks like walking around in his underwear, and he wants Andre to see it.

Only, Andre’s not paying any fucking attention to him, fully engrossed in whatever he’s doing on his phone.

Tom tugs his sweatpants on and flops down onto his bed.

 

Andre shows up late on an off day with a bag of carryout and a 12-pack of beer. He knocks, instead of letting himself in, even though he has a key. Tom lets him in and goes back to his place on the couch, unpausing his game to keep playing.

“I’m gonna put this in the fridge, ok?” Andre calls as he heads into the kitchen. Every time he comes over, it’s like he never moved out. He brings food, he brings beer, he makes himself at home.

Tom finishes his match and heads into the kitchen, where Andre is rummaging through a drawer.

“What are you looking for?” he asks, walking over and peeking into the bag Andre brought.

“Bottle opener?” Andre asks.

“Oh, shit I think it’s in the living room?” Tom says. Andre holds out a beer and fork to him.

“Movie night?” he asks, and Tom nods. It’s not like he thinks Andre will pack his Chinese food up and leave, but he doesn’t want to take his chances.

They settle in on Tom’s couch with cartons of food, beers open on the coffee table as Tom navigates through Netflix. They settle in, eating in silence as the movie plays.

Halfway through, Andre’s tugged the blanket off the back of the couch and wrapped himself in it, flopping over to lean against Tom, snuggling up. This is Andre’s thing - he wraps up in the blanket, snuggles up to Tom, and promptly falls asleep. Tom’s pretty sure they’ve never finished a movie they’ve started watching when Andre’s done this.

Andre’s hand is on his thigh, though, which is new and different. Tom really, really tries to ignore it.

Tom’s trying to ignore it, but Andre’s thumb is moving back and forth in small motions and - is it moving further toward the inside of Tom’s thigh because - 

“Tom,” Andre says.

When Tom looks down, Andre’s looking back at him. He’s licked his lips, and Tom remembers kissing him, and he wants to do it again. It’s too awkward an angle, though, to get to Andre’s mouth.

“Yeah,” Tom asks. He swallows hard.

“Do you - do you want to - “ Andre asks. His hand is moving up - how is Tom supposed to concentrate on words when Andre is -

“Yes,” Tom says.

Andre shifts then, the blanket falling down, off, and he presses his mouth against Tom’s, too hard, half losing his balance and their teeth click together. He laughs and he pulls back, moving his hand away from Tom’s thigh. Tom makes a disappointed noise, which makes Andre laugh again.

He straddles Tom’s hips, sure, practiced motions and Tom is pretty sure that Andre has done this before, but it’s nothing he’s ever done with Tom. Tom’s got a lot of questions and he’s pretty sure now is not the time to ask them, except - 

“It’s been months,” Tom finally says, because it has.

“I know,” Andre says. He settles against Tom, leaning down and pressing their mouths together, not giving Tom time to get any more words out, settling his hips down against Tom’s. Andre’s half-hard, like he’s been sitting, thinking about what he’s doing to Tom now.

“I thought you didn’t want - “ Tom says, but Andre catches their mouths together again, like he doesn’t want to have the conversation. Tom moves his hands down, shoves gently at Andre’s chest.

“What?” Andre asks, sitting back slightly.

“I thought you didn’t want this,” Tom says. “Us. Whatever this is.”

“I shouldn’t,” Andre says. “And we shouldn’t, because it’s stupid and it’s gonna fuck things up.”

“It hasn’t before now,” Tom says.

“Please,” Andre says, and rolls his eyes. “You walk around our hotel rooms in your underwear and you have the nerve to tell me it doesn’t have you fucked up?”

Tom narrows his eyes. “First of all, fuck you. I thought you weren’t looking and I was putting on a show for nothing - “ Andre starts laughing, his body shaking against Tom’s, and fuck, Tom is half-hard too.

“I wanted to ignore it,” Andre says.

“This is definitely not ignoring it,” Tom tells him. He brings his hands around to rest on Andre’s back, just above the curve of his ass.

“No,” Andre says. “I wanted to ignore it, but I also wanted you to fuck me.”

Tom feels like he’s been checked particularly hard and all the air has gone out of his lungs. Nobody has ever said anything like that to him before in his life, especially not a guy, especially not a teammate. Especially not Andre. He’s pretty sure his ears are ringing.

“What,” he says, struck dumb.

“I wanted you to over the summer, but we couldn’t - like, I wasn’t gonna let someone fuck me in my parents’ house, because that would be weird,” Andre says. Casual. Like he’s not talking about getting Tom’s dick in his ass.

“Uh huh,” Tom says. He shifts slightly so that his dick gets a little action. It’s been years since he’s dry humped anyone, but he’s not above it. Not right this instant.

“Maybe I don’t want to have to be quiet,” Andre says. “So we couldn’t do it at Nicke’s either. I’d rather him not know more than I’d rather my parents not know.”

“Uh huh,” Tom says. That’s about what he can manage and - is Andre really talking to him about all the places they couldn’t fuck over the summer when Andre apparently really, really wanted him to? Andre takes that moment to shift his hips, and Tom groans.

“I wasn’t gonna pursue it, you know?” Andre says. “I think it would be, you know. It would be bad for dynamics or something.”

He’s moving his hips now, slow rocking motions. Tom is hard. Tom is ready.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about it,” Andre says, and his mouth is back on Tom’s.

 

“What happens after this?” Tom asks later, when they’re both sprawled out on Tom’s bed. Andre’s half asleep stretched out next to him.

“Don’t know,” Andre says. He opens his eyes and pushes himself up slightly. “Are you gonna get all weird?”

“How am I supposed to know?” Tom asks him. “I’ve never _done_ this before.”

“Well,” Andre says, running a hand through his hair, “one of two things is gonna happen. Either it’s weird and we fucked up, or it’s not weird.”

“That’s - okay that’s not what I was asking,” Tom says.

“What were you asking?” Andre says. He pulls on a pillow until it’s tucked under his face. He’s closing his eyes, like he doesn’t feel like having a conversation.

“What happens. With us. Are we like. Is it just this?” Tom asks. “Are we gonna do it again?”

Andre laughs. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Next time, I’ll fuck you, and then you can sleep in the wet spot.”


End file.
